The city of Ilorin in Western Nigeria is home to generations of lawyers, and was founded by the Yoruba—one of the three largest ethnic groups in Nigeria. When Laolu Senbanjo was born in Ilorin, his fate was already determined. His father was a lawyer, so he, too, would become a lawyer.

Despite being groomed in the legal field, and eventually becoming a human rights lawyer, Senbanjo always chose art as his first love. This passion created tension within the family, especially between Senbanjo and his father. It was culturally understood that respectable professions were in one of the following fields: law, medicine, or engineering. “I knew if I pursued a career in the arts, I’d have to live with the fact that some people in my hometown might never talk to me again,” says Senbanjo.

Parental objection to pursuing a career in the arts is rooted in a common stereotype – being an artist means being a starving artist. But, who says that has to become your reality? And, more importantly, who determines what your career path will be — you or your parents?

To ease the parental tension and lift his spirits, Senbanjo’s paternal grandmother would recite an Oríki, which is a form of Yoruba poetry consisting of songs of praise. Your name determines your Oríki, and it is believed that if you call someone by their Oríki, it inspires them and evokes innate character traits of fortitude and perseverance. The English translation of Senbanjo’s Oríki is: “You are somebody who has what the West doesn’t have.” As a child, Senbanjo didn’t grasp its meaning, but he always found comfort in his grandmother’s words.

Throughout his upbringing, it was a constant struggle for Senbanjo to suppress his interest in the arts in order to follow the expected path of becoming a lawyer. He settled on the reality that, if he sacrificed sleep, he could pursue both law and art. However, when he could no longer function on sleepless nights, Senbanjo accepted his artistic talents and made the valiant leap to pursue a career in the arts full-time.

Senbanjo photographed during a moment of contemplation by The Cannon.

Today, Senbanjo’s style of art, Afromysterics, incorporates African themes and African traditions. He coined the term in 2007, and it means the mystery of the African thought pattern. Since moving to the United States in 2013, his unique style has resulted in commissions and partnerships from celebrities and brand titans including Nike, Beyoncé’s visual album Lemonade, the Grammy Museum, and the Smithsonian Institution.

We recently sat down with the New York-based visual artist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C. to discuss how he overcame parental objection to pursue a career in the arts and how he maintains creative control when working with brands and celebrities.

Your family was hell-bent on you becoming a lawyer. How did they react when you expressed your interest in the arts?

From a young age, I was taught that to be a lawyer is to be seen as somebody. Even as a law student, you’re given respect from your peers and society. However, I always had an interest in sketching and music. When I was 14 years old, my art teacher told my father that I had a special gift. My father’s response was, “Okay. But that is not what you’re supposed to do.” Although I went on to study law at Nigeria’s University of Ilorin, my first love remained art. I’d stay up all night using charcoal to sketch intricate patterns and images. During my second year of law school I reached my tipping point and told my parents I was going to drop out of law school to pursue art full-time.

“Dreamscape,” one of Senbanjo’s creations. Image courtesy of Senbanjo.

My father completely flipped out, and his friends, my uncles, and my brother met with me to provide counsel. “What’s wrong with you? You have an opportunity to be a lawyer. Finish three more years, and you’ll be out before you know. You can always have art as backup. You’ll thank us,” they said. My brother added, “If you drop out, I won’t support you when we’re older.” My mother pleaded, “Please don’t destroy my family!”

The only thing my father said was, “Fumi, talk to your son. I didn’t give birth to this kind of child.” In a Yoruba family, when a father says, “Talk to your son,” it is a very strong statement because it automatically means that you become your mother’s problem, and he cuts himself off. It also creates tension outside the home because everyone will say, “He doesn’t listen to anyone.” But, when a child becomes successful, he is his father’s son.

How did your father try to dissuade you from pursuing the arts?

Whenever I mentioned art to my father, he would tell me, “You’re majoring in your minor, and you’re minoring in your major.” I often thought to myself, Who determines what my major is—my father or me? One afternoon, my father wanted to show me firsthand how artists in Nigeria live, and he drove me around the slums. “See that artist! Is that how you really want to live?” he asked. This experience messed with my psyche, and I’ll never forget the squalid conditions in which the artists lived. They were completely isolated, and society did not reckon them as people who could stand up for anyone.

So, I persisted through three more years of law school and received my degree in 2005. It never stops with African parents. You have to keep racking up degrees, but when you get them, your life is gone. In their eyes, they see you as better off because of your degrees instead of what you achieve.

I practiced as a human rights lawyer for five years, and spent my final three years working at the National Human Rights Commission. I was the senior legal officer and focused on women and children’s rights. I’d travel to different parts of Northern Nigeria visiting schools and villages to educate men and women about why children should be in school. We also served as a shield for girls who were being forced into early marriages. Girls would run to our office or write letters, and we would try to help them by taking them to shelters. My eyes were opened to this epidemic through my practice. Somehow I always found time to continue making art on the side. I loved helping people, but I also knew my art was like a monster just waiting to unleash its power. When I told my father I needed money for art he said, “Nobody has money for that stuff!”

Senbanjo posing alongside his work. Image courtesy of Senbanjo.

What strategies did you use to overcome negative opinions of pursuing an art career?

There were moments when I felt very misunderstood and ostracized. It was painful to watch people downplay what I held as my truth. People want to tell you “This is who you are versus who you know you are.” It’s difficult for people to understand, because you can be a lot of things to different people. However, every time I picked up my pen and sketched anything, it was an act of reassurance that I could do this. This was my survival mechanism.

I was also inspired by people’s reaction and connection to my art. I could see that my work made people feel something special. I never made people feel this way with my law practice. Art is a powerful channel that can move fast and change a whole generation.

Most importantly, I had to create a chosen family. In 2010, I quit my job to pursue art full-time, and started the Laolu Senbanjo Art Gallery in Abuja, Nigeria. I put all my money into it and didn’t make much back, but I was happy. My family never bought my art, and that was painful. I befriended a curator named Osi, and he became my curator. My friend Daisy played the guitar and we would gather amazing musicians, poets, and artists at the gallery. It was my safe haven where I could create magic with people who understood me. Additionally, through my space, I got put in contact with people from the American Embassy and Jamaican Embassy who bought my art, and connected me with other people locally to hold exhibitions. By the time I applied for my visa to come to the U.S., many of the employees at the American Embassy already knew me. It’s important to find people who will support you.

How did you develop your craft?

Whether I’m using charcoal, ink, or another medium, you must consistently find different ways to apply it. I learn through trial and error and by watching people. I have always paid attention to details and can look at any surface, even a table, and create complex patterns. The challenge is taking the ideas in my head, and putting them onto paper. It’s stressful when the two don’t match, but I’ve learned that what’s on the canvas is meant to be there. Once I nailed my style, I knew I could do it on any surface—even the human body, which I call the Sacred Art of the Ori. This Yoruba body painting ritual is a spiritually- intimate experience, and it’s cathartic for me and my muse.

When you find your gift, you have to own it. Art is pure and honest. Every time I put my mark on something, it’s going to stop you in your tracks, and you’re going to feel something. If it doesn’t, I’m not doing my job. People want a formula, but I say, “Just do you.”

You moved to New York City in 2013. How did you go from lawyer-turned-artist to landing crazy commissions with Nike, Beyoncé and others?

Things didn’t happen immediately, and it was difficult acclimating to the culture and pace of New York City. I joined fellow musicians in Brooklyn to form a band and consistently created artwork to post on my digital platforms and website. My father would call just to make sure I was alive or say, “When you’re done with this art craze, let us know.” I experienced a series of minor successes and failures until Nike handpicked me as a Master of Air to create a T-shirt and sneaker design for AIR MAX CON 2016. I was the only black and Nigerian amongst the team of masters, so when the announcement went live, Nigerian media ran with the story.

My brother called to congratulate me, and said that our father was bragging about me to everyone. “That’s my son,” he’d say. I knew that was going to happen.

What was it like collaborating with Nike?

It was cool, and I wish I could do an entire line with them. Both of my custom designs sold out! I’m currently working on a project with Nike South Africa, but I can’t say much else about that project. One thing about working with a brand like Nike is there’s more bureaucracy in the decision-making process, but I still felt like I maintained creative freedom. For one, they approached me because of my Afromysterics style, so they knew what they were getting. Brands come to you because they see something special or something they’d like to capitalize on. And, for me, it’s a blessing to be in a unique space talking about our culture, our themes, and putting Afromysterics at the forefront.

Nike Air Force Ones, hand-painted by Senbanjo.

How did Beyoncé find you, and what was it like collaborating on her visual album, Lemonade, which literally put your body art—Sacred Art of the Ori—on the map?

I was surprised when Beyoncé’s team contacted me, but at the same time I wasn’t. What I do, very few people can. When they called, I was hired on the spot, and there was no recommendation, interview, trial run or anything. They found me through social media, and checked all my stuff on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to be sure I was actually the guy doing what I was doing.

When I arrived on set, I was surrounded by veterans who could rifle off all the celebrities they’d worked with in the past 10 to 20 years. Even though I was new to the scene, there was a mutual respect for my craft. They had to create my title because my role did not exist. I’m not a makeup artist; I’m an “artist on set.”

Beyoncé shared her vision with me for the song, Sorry, and told me she admired my work. Then, she simply said, “Do you.” I’ve never been more proud of myself, and just brought my A-game. The cameramen were congratulating me after the shoot, and I didn’t see how much airtime my art received until Lemonade debuted in April 2016. It’s amazing for someone to see what you do, and put it in on that kind of stage. Now, people everywhere in the world have seen my art, and I get emails from people in Australia, Japan, the U.S. and other countries who are inspired by my work.

As crazy as it sounds, when Lemonade came out, I met other musicians and celebrities who were like, “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you, but when we saw your stuff in Beyonce’s video, we thought we were late.” That’s how you know Beyoncé is a real businesswoman. Some people see things before they happen. Others watch things happen. While others are like, “What the hell happened?” The question is—where do you want to be?

More celebrities have jumped on your designs, and you will be releasing some projects with major brands next year. How do you manage the pressure of living up to high expectations?

I’m currently working on a project with Swizz Beatz & The Dean Collection, which will come out next year in London, and he’s been putting my name out to everyone. It’s crazy because sometimes the people you hold up are there holding you up! I never want to let my clients down, so I do what I’m there to do—my art. As a pioneer in the Afrofuturism movement, I consider it my duty to keep creating and to continue pushing boundaries. My art is never a job, just another exploration.

My grandmother passed in 2001, and I recently just blurted out my Oríkì: “You are somebody who has what the West doesn’t have.” Now, it all makes sense. In fact, it’s never made more sense.

Has your relationship with your father changed?

We are good friends now. I love him. I came to understand that Yoruba parents have to get outside their own reality, which is difficult because they have no reference point for you. They haven’t seen anyone who has done what you do before. They only see you as an extension of themselves. From their perspective, any extension that is unfamiliar cannot be extraordinary. Up until 2015, there was no art of mine in my father’s house.

A Yoruba father will never apologize, but something powerful he told me was this: “We are your parents and you taught us something about art and being an artist. Parents are like children—they don’t know what they don’t know.”

There is an eclecticism to the Mother office, and the informality of the building sets that creative atmosphere,” says Charlie McKittrick, Head of Strategy at Mother. Dangling above the bar is a large collection of copper pots there for purely decorative purposes, and climbing above the kitchenware is a spiral staircase that ascends three skylight-lit stories to the roof that overlooks the Hudson River to the west and Midtown’s skyscrapers to the east. “That staircase and the light at the top of it creates a central core that everyone has to participate in, no matter what floor you’re working on, and that breaks up the cluster a normal floor plan creates,” explains McKittrick.

Mother New York’s space reflects how the organization simultaneously takes itself seriously and welcomes eccentricity, exemplified by the Damien Hirst painting that hangs on one wall and the framed photos of staffers’ mothers arranged like a collage on another. Each employee also has an image of their mother on their business card. “It reminds us, What would our mother think of what we’re doing?” says McKittrick.

The company’s work matches it’s irreverent style. Mother New York has hosted a dinner party in hot air balloons for Stella Artois, re-imagined iconic Vogue photo shoots using only Target products, and helped Crate & Barrel’s CB2 create the first-ever, crowd-sourced apartment designed by asking fans to vote on what pieces went in each room. As the company develops its projects, it’s typical for Mother New York’s creative department to hang their concepts on office wallboards for everyone to see.

“It creates a more open and collaborative way of working on a project,” says McKittrick. “A lot of times in advertising the creatives will lurk away in a dark room and work amongst themselves. The boards are a way of bringing that creating process out of the shadows and into the open. Everyone can see what is being worked on, even if it isn’t their project.”

Other than the sprawling space that would make any city-dweller jealous, the building’s true appeal rests in its relationship with the city and its history. Inside, remnants of the building’s past life as a bank are everywhere, complete with a massive wooden conference table seemingly more appropriate for stuffy bankers than a dozen creatives with laptops. When the company rented the space, however, the team painstakingly rehabbed each room, one at a time. In the process, they discovered a portrait of the bank’s previous owner, which hung in the office until the owner’s granddaughter happened to glimpse it during renovations and asked for it. “It was hers all along, so of course we gifted it to her,” says Rosàs. If the space looks and feels more like a home than an office, that was the intent.“My personal reason for opening this in 2002 was to have a place to work where my children were proud of me, a place where they could come and visit, and it’s a philosophy I try to share with my team,” says Rosàs.

Left: Jordi Rosàs’ Office “It’s actually my older brother’s bike from 37 years ago. We organized a bike fixing event here so I convinced my brother to give us his to fix. Now I ride it when I go to bars after work,” says Rosás with a laugh.

Jordi Rosàs, founder of @Rosàs, in his office.

&Rosàs’ patio. An oasis for creative professionals in the heart of Barcelona.

Instrument CEO Justin Lewis likens making the jump from a production shop for ad agencies to a full-fledged interactive content studio to tearing off the Band-Aid. While painful, it was the best thing the agency ever did for itself. “Once you tear that Band-Aid off, there is no going back as you do alienate some people from other advertising organizations,” says Lewis. “ But the choice was essential in allowing our business to become something greater than it would have ever been had we been a silent partner for other organizations.”

Today, Instrument is 130-people strong, up from the 15 employees it had in 2010 when it changed direction. Inside Instrument’s 30,000 square foot Portland, Oregon headquarters, the atmosphere feels more like an agency than a corporation due to how Lewis and his Chief Creative Office JD Hooge have constructed their teams. Rather than having a super-sized reporting structure, Instrument has teams of 20-30 people of various disciplines, working as mini-agencies within a larger company. That has allowed them to avoid what they believe is a tipping point of efficiency within a company, growth beyond 40 employees.

The Instrument office in Portland was custom-designed specifically for the agency.

That’s just one way the company developed its own identity. The partners of Instrument believe that their company culture needs to be tested (not protected), that visual designers and user experience professionals can be one in the same, and that clients need to leave some room in their creative briefs for Instrument to make magic happen.

We recently sat down with Hooge and Lewis to find out more about how their holistic view of digital content separates them from the pack and how facetime with their clients like Google Design, Stumptown, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art makes all the difference.

Why evolve from a production shop for ad agencies to becoming your own full-service agency?

JL: We had aspirations to have something greater than a production shop for global advertising agencies. That’s a great living for a lot of mid-size agency owners, but we made a really distinct choice one day where we said, ‘We believe in ourselves enough to break away from that model and go directly to clients.’

JD: There was a moment when we realized that we were doing the strategy work and not charging for it, so we needed to add it as a service and start charging people. When we started doing copywriting, photography, script-writing, and video content in 2010, we started to completely bypass agencies all together. We have never looked back and never worked through an agency for five or six years now. It’s a lot more satisfying if you are able to inform the content and the ideas of the thing that you are making. It wasn’t even so much a business decision, as a belief that we could make a better product at the end if we were involved in all of it.

JL: We also had a philosophical notion that you should meet the people doing the work. You bring a project to Instrument, and you will get to meet the people who are doing the work. We don’t send it right out the back door. There is a lot of pride in that.

“We believe in ourselves enough to break away from that model and go directly to clients.”

Instrument is known for having a strong culture. What tangible steps have you taken to create that?

JL: The culture is a value proposition and you find that at times people want to protect their culture. We believe the opposite: A culture needs to be durable and tested and beaten up and bruised from time to time. It needs to reflect the needs of the people in the organization, not the organization itself. A great culture is one that does shift to fulfill the demands of the people that come and spend time there every day. You have to be willing to give up some control. But you have to believe in something, and that belief structure has to be valued and shared. If it is, it takes on a behavior that you are proud of.

Creative work being done at Instrument.

How does having visual designers lead the UX affect the outcome of the product and your project deliverables?

JD: The by-product of that is awesome, but the upfront work we have to go through to hire for that is painful! It’s like we are self-inflicting pain on ourselves making that such a strong requirement when hiring. But the by-product is beautiful because there is no hand off between someone who cares about user experience and someone who cares about the visual design. It’s also more efficient, because when someone who is a strong visual designer is creating wireframes or creating user experience flows, they are also thinking about the visuals and that comes through and accelerates the process much sooner. It’s not such an imagination leap that the client has to take when they move on to the next step. That goes all the way through to prototyping. Right now we are using every single prototype tool that is on the market, even on the same project.

JL: When you really move away from the paradigm from constantly working towards the deliverable and start working in a direction of trying to uncover what is right for the final deliverable of the product, then you start to work in this looser fashion that is more about using all the tools to uncover good ideas as fast as possible. Yes, it would be more convenient to say, ‘Ok, step one is wireframes…’ but does that make the end result better? We don’t think so. So you have to get your hands dirty, learn a ton of different things, and be able to move in and out of different tools rapidly to find good ways to visually communicate the best idea.

When working with clients, how do you strike a balance between them giving you a clear assignment with your designers having the necessary room to use their imagination on a concept?

JL: We really made this wonderful pivot in the organization at a certain point and worked hard to put some air into the relationship with the client. It’s really easy in this world to get to a point where there is nothing left to chance in the relationship between the agency and the client, but then there’s no room left for greatness! When there’s no space other than A, B and C, the chance of finishing the project is great, but the chances of uncovering something amazing are slim because you’ve tried to over-rev on the creative process where no surprise can ever happen. Where’s the room for magic to happen? Our process has allowed us to have amazing results but to also work hand-in-hand with the client to steer and work with business needs in the moment and it creates a real-time working relationship that everyone feels makes us partners.

“You have to get your hands dirty, learn a ton of different things, and be able to move in and out of different tools rapidly to find good ways to visually communicate the best idea.”

To what degree does it require more face time with clients to earn their creative trust?

JD: It depends on the client. For example, right now we are working with a client in LA, and one of their designers has been here for a month and we’ve been down there three times this summer. They’ve had various people coming up here and there are three of them here today. In some sprints we have meetings every two days on video hangouts. We text with them, there are no barriers: We are an extension of their team and they are an extension of ours. When we have in-person meetings we do whiteboard full day sessions, and when we are on video chats we will open up Sketch and show them where we are at. Same with Nike. We have people go out to Nike twice a week who are fully working side by side with their creative directors. With other clients it can be totally different. It comes back to this ability of being flexible and having a lot of tools at our disposal.

An Instrument project with their Portland-area neighbor Nike

Tell us about how you organize your teams, as Instrument has grown from an indie agency into a 130-person office.

JL: When we were at the 40 person range, we made a decision to turn the company into team model making vertical teams that are multidisciplinary and run by a person that is a producer in nature, but also a business person. We reorganized the company into that model and have never really looked back from it. Take a designer from Instrument and they would be on one of four teams they would identify with — that enables us to be fluid as an organization and reduce the scope of what an employee is doing and caring about. An organization tends to lose its efficiency when it moves past 30 or 40 people, but that is typically what we have on our teams now, so it gives you that sort of family unit and strength of having 30 really talented disciplines in one group.

JD: The teams sort of operate as independent agencies with this leadership umbrella team above it. The benefit is that they can have access to other team resources if needed. We have a bartering system where, if one team is light on a certain element, they have access to these other teams. You have your team family, your discipline family, then the whole Instrument family. Each team has their own logo, and events, and happy hour and off-site trips and rituals. They all take pride in taking on their own identity.

There are no barriers: We are an extension of their team and they are an extension of ours.

What are the biggest changes you see in the future for both Instrument and the field of digital design?

JD: I feel like we are at the one percent mark of web design and digital services in terms of design and technology and where they meet. We are so at the beginning and it’s really wild-west. That’s why we are doing this. There are zero rules and we are just making it up as we go along.

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Design firms may dominate big cities like New York, Los Angeles, and London. But people with innovative, creative ideas and the skills to execute them come from all over. Who says you have to open your business in a major media market in order to be successful?

Sure, if you’re in New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago, you may be positioned down the street from the world’s biggest companies. A pitch meeting is a subway or taxi ride away. However, if you’re in Cleveland, Omaha, and even Anchorage, you can still get your firm’s portfolio out there and attract business from major players.

Here’s how firms like Nottingham Spirk (Cleveland), Grain&Mortar (Omaha), and Spawn Ideas (Anchorage) make their zip code part of their gig-winning culture.

First, they turn their physical location into an asset.

In Cleveland, Nottingham Spirk co-founder John Nottingham pulls into the parking lot of a converted landmark Christian Science church overlooking the city’s University Circle education, arts, and medical district. His 60,000 square foot, neo-Roman building with an ornate rotunda ceiling contains his company’s entire “innovation center,” from research and development, to engineering and crafting, all the way up to executive offices.

A bird’s-eye view of the Nottingham Spirk office, looking down from the rotunda.

While Nottingham Spirk has been innovating for major brands like Sherwin-Williams, Unilever, Mars, and Cleveland Clinic for over 40 years, it has only been in its current location for about a decade.

The look of the building is one thing, but the space is central to Nottingham Spirk’s success. Everything is in-house. That means consumer researchers, focus group moderators, industrial designers, mechanical engineers, prototype producers, production designers, and those who source materials are all under one roof (something not always possible in cities with sky-high rents where certain departments are pushed off-site). Having focus group rooms upstairs from industrial designers pays off when a morning focus group gives criticism and then designers refine a prototype that wows the afternoon focus group.

“That’s real-time product development,” says Nottingham.

Codie Costello, the new business director at Spawn, talks with prospective clients while looking out a large window onto the Cook Inlet, where she can often spot Beluga whales breaching. “You can see their white humpbacks come out of the water,” Costello says.

While Spawn works on local campaigns, like a successful re-branding effort for all 31 Alaska-owned and operated McDonald’s franchises (highlighting “locally-owned and operated since 1970,” on bags, cups, and trays), the agency also hones in on something every Alaska resident appreciates.

“We’re focused on leveraging our outdoor experience,” Costello says. And it makes sense that a company across the water from Sleeping Lady, a mountain in the Alaska Range, has contracts with gear-maker Mountain Hardwear and Intrawest, a major North American ski resort operator. Spawn looked at Mountain Hardwear’s mitten and glove offerings and realized there were two missing sizes: XS and XL. With those new sizes came growth. For Intrawest, Spawn boosted season sales by helping to refine the “M.A.X. Pass,” which allows skiers to access 39 mountains for five days apiece throughout the season.

Over half of Spawn’s employees are not from Alaska. They know it is a risk to move from a city like Denver or New York. So Costello says Spawn likes to promote risk-taking. If potential clients don’t like a non-conformist pitch, so be it. “But I’m going to take that step,” she says. That might also mean crafting a pitch that shows the client not just a finished product, but the original sketches in an effort to welcome them into the creative process.

Costello admits that deciding to move to Alaska for a job is a big step. She knows, since she did it herself after living in Northern California and New York City. But Spawn offers some key creative recruits a unique opportunity: It will fund a try-out period. Pack a small bag, and get your feet wet in Alaska, while you’re getting your feet wet with the agency. If it’s a good fit both ways, the employee is welcome to take the plunge and hire a moving company. If Anchorage is too remote or it’s not a good fit, no hard feelings.

“It sounds kind of weird. ‘Why don’t you come try it for three weeks, a month?’ We’ll have you come work on a project with us, see what you think,” Costello says. “So many people have this idea ‘I want to come to Alaska.’ But it’s dark for most of the winter, and some people don’t like that. While it doesn’t always work for every person in every situation, it certainly has worked for us.”

For a young strategy and branding company like Grain&Mortar in Nebraska, it’s impossible to discount the long runway that comes with opening a business in a city like Omaha, which has a cost of living score of 88 on Sperling’s Best Places calculator. (The U.S. average is 100. Santa Monica, Calif., on the other hand, checks in at 294.)

Inside the Grain&Mortar office, which is located in downtown Omaha, Nebraska.

Creative director Eric Downs and his partners used to pitch against each other as freelancers working out of a co-working space, until they realized they would be stronger together. So they established their 5,000 square feet headquarters in the Mastercraft Building, an old furniture factory which still features original pulleys, pipes, bricks, and valves.

Downs knows the firm loses projects to competitors in the big cities. “There’s some merit to having people a little bit closer,” he says. “But on the flip side, there’s no way we could do our jobs and not be on top of each other if we were somewhere else. We know what the rent is in those big cities, and quite honestly, it’s not manageable.”

With a little extra space in Omaha comes a chance to use the space creatively. The firm hosts design society events, which boosts their local profile and serves to scout local talent. It also leases some space to a calligrapher, who has her own client base but is always on hand if Grain&Mortar needs some exquisite lettering.

As a progressive design firm in a city where big companies still go for billboards over social media, Grain&Mortar is the go-to designer for major Omaha events, like the Big Omaha conference. It’s an event that brings together hundreds of entrepreneurs and Grain&Mortar insists on a seat backstage and at off-site dinners and cocktail parties. Downs and his colleagues then get to pick the brains and network with people like Refinery29’s Amy Emmerich, Twitter’s Evan Williams and Google Ventures’ Kevin Rose. The networking has so far helped them land business from Google, Twitch and Hudl.

“They’ve seen what we’ve done in Omaha and a lot of them have turned into clients themselves or became a referral source for us,” Downs says.

Salaries in these cities are lower than they would be on the coasts. But all three subjects say they ask their employees to enjoy their lives outside of the office – youth soccer games wait for no one, after all.

Downs even encourages his employees to work fewer than 40 hours a week if they have gotten their work done. “I think a lot of companies work more hours than we do,” he says, noting that employees at plenty of businesses have 50-hour work-weeks but a 40-hour salary. “We’re adamant that our teams go home at 40 hours.”

For some clients getting out of a big city bubble is an asset. Cleveland’s “middle of the market” reputation actually helps Nottingham Spirk, believes Nottingham. “They feel like we have a better feel for the customer they’re going after if they’re selling something in a Wal-Mart, Target, or Dick’s Sporting Goods,” says Nottingham. “They think we are closer to that consumer, and I think they are right.”

In the end, Spawn, Grain&Mortar, and Nottingham Spirk know that their home towns provide both advantages and disadvantages. But they’re enjoying their unique position in their market.

“If you’re marketing anything, you want to market yourself in a market that’s not crowded,” Nottingham says. “If Nottingham Spirk were located in a New York, L.A., or Chicago, I don’t think we would have been as successful as we are now.”

In the pursuit of an artistic career, there are those who take the predictable path — obtaining the right degrees, qualifications, apprenticeships, and jobs, while others blaze their own way. Neither route guarantees success, and you can only hope that your talent and hard work will be recognized.

If you’re in the latter group, perhaps it took a life transition, experience, or conscious decision to stop calling your artistic pursuits a hobby before you set out on your way. Add this to the trial and error of developing your craft and style, and it can make for a long and unpredictable path.

However, the bright side of taking an alternative course is that it allows you to keep twisting and turning and picking up overlooked jewels other people haven’t picked up. Multi-disciplinary artist, Daniel Oduntan, who focuses on photography, film, and music composition, knows this well. The self-taught artist navigates the daily challenges of living and creating with dyslexia. “Living with dyslexia forces you to find a way,” says Oduntan. “You must navigate different routes, and there are no shortcuts.”

We recently spoke with 32-year-old Oduntan about teaching himself photography, the challenge of creating with dyslexia, and the benefits of having to take the longer route.

You attended the London College of Music, then worked for a time in construction. What led you to ultimately teach yourself photography and become a visual artist?

I tried everything in my power not be an artist, so I went into construction. I wanted to become a surveyor, but it was the height of the recession, which made this difficult. As I began to see the world through a different lens, it manifested itself in pictures. While on construction sites, I would take shots on my camera phone, and upload the images to Flickr and Tumblr to document my activities. The response was really positive. People were surprised that I was capturing these shots from my camera phone. I was also inspired by self-trained artists, like Gordon Parks and Quentin Tarantino. I knew it was time to start shooting on a real camera, and, to my luck, my friend told me that her university was getting rid of materials and camera gear. I didn’t have money to buy a digital camera, so I was happy to claim the heavy, analog Zenit 35mm camera. It helped that I wasn’t a complete stranger to cameras as my mom gave me an analog Canon as a child.

YouTube became my teacher. I would watch tutorials, then go out and shoot friends. I also watched The Art of Photography by Ted Forbes, which discusses photography philosophies, and introduced me to new photographers. Many times, I would develop my film at the drugstore, and everything would be black. It was a process of trial and error. So, I’d re-watch the tutorials, and shoot again. After a few months, I got comfortable using my camera, and my appetite was whet to document the world around me.

“Living with dyslexia forces you to find a way,” says Oduntan. “You must navigate different routes, and there are no shortcuts.

When did you realize you were onto something?

I knew shooting analog photography would only take me so far. If I wanted to compete for commissions, I’d have to go digital. With limited funds, I asked myself, How can I stay in this, and still progress in my art form? Through online research, I discovered there was a way to use new technology with old technology, and I could get the best of both worlds. For example, a digital Canon lens only mounts to a digital Canon camera, but an analog Minolta lens can mount to a digital Sony camera. This was my solution. I turned to YouTube tutorials once again, and I learned how to edit pictures through trial and error using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. On a whim, I entered Mica Gallery’s photography competition in 2012. Despite turning in materials late, I was nominated for Best Emerging British Artist.

You also taught yourself videography. What was your learning process there?

In many ways, television raised me. As a dyslexic person, I’m not going to sit down and read. If you can’t read well, your next form of education is what you hear and see. So, I watched YouTube tutorials on cutting demo software like Adobe Premiere Pro, and developed a good sense to cut a scene here and edit there. It was an experimental process until I got it right. With my documentary work, I’m always looking for subtle nuances, while at the same time exploring creative ways to bring the soul of a narrative to the forefront.

I’m always looking for subtle nuances, while at the same time exploring creative ways to bring the soul of a narrative to the forefront.

Why did you decide to teach yourself rather than going to a design school? And how have you honed your craft?

Believe me, I would have loved to go to school for photography and videography. It would have saved me the headache of all my trial and error. But I’m from a working-class background, and I didn’t have the funds to go back to school or take out a loan. I had no choice but to be a self-trained artist.

In addition to learning through doing and YouTube tutorials, I surround myself with mentors, like photographer Eddie Otchere and filmmaker Dan Fontanelli. Eddie has redefined hip-hop photography by capturing the personalities of artists from Nas and Jay Z to the Wu-Tang Clan and the Notorious B.I.G. In The Icons Of Wu-Tang Clan by Dan, Eddie explains how he came to shoot every Wu-Tang member as well as his process in using print to memorialize the subject. I believe representation in art matters, so I’m constantly picking up new tips from them.

Their criticism was my greatest learning tool. When people you trust critique your work, and it comes from a good place, you grow.

In publishing, there can be a stigma around self-published authors. How do people react when you tell them you’re a self-taught artist?

A lot of people from the fine art world and otherwise appreciate my hustle and natural ability. And, to be honest, I’m proud to be a self-taught artist.

When people you trust critique your work, and it comes from a good place, you grow.

When did you discover that you’re dyslexic, and how does this impact your art?

I always struggled more than my two sisters in school, but didn’t know why. I discovered I was dyslexic late in university. I’d hide my writing with my arm, and would scribble shapes over words. At times, I even misspelled my name, and had difficulty with the structure of language. My dyslexic friend at university encouraged me to get tested, and the university arranged for an all-expense, paid assessment. When my results came back, the doctor was impressed by my achievements, and shocked that I’d made it this far without support for my dyslexia. Receiving this information was a huge weight off my shoulders, and I felt like I was given a badge that says, “You are dyslexic, not stupid.”

Living with dyslexia forces you to find a way. You must navigate different routes, and there are no shortcuts. Instead of going from point A to point B, as a dyslexic person, you have to go from A to Z to P to T to R just to get to B. Everything takes longer to finish. My eyes hurt. My head hurts. I have to take frequent breaks at the computer, and it gets frustrating.

The same is true when I create art. It sounds strange, but when I hear sound, I see shapes, colors, and images. I started pursuing still and moving images when I discovered their creative similarities to music. Most people don’t experience these nuances because they’ve never had to. Dyslexia can be an obsession, but it helps me focus and get the most out of art.

What advice do you have for people living and creating with dyslexia?

I believe it’s important to acknowledge what you can do well. Dyslexia has nothing to do with your intelligence. To use a driving analogy, it’s frustrating for anyone to be stuck in traffic or encounter roadblocks en route to your destination. You’re going to be angry, and you may even experience road rage if you’re running late for an appointment. This is what it feels like when you’re dyslexic. A negative trait of dyslexia can be paranoia, and, in this example, you’d start telling yourself, People will think I can’t drive, and that I’m stupid. I encourage you to acknowledge your frustration, but be brave. Don’t let living with dyslexia be the rest of your story. There are benefits of taking the longer route, and you should embrace this. Find your tribe of people who understand you and complement your skill set.

You started an art house collective called, Soul Labels. What is the inspiration behind this?

Soul Labels curates and produces content across various media platforms, from film, fashion, and exhibitions to workshops and experimental A/V projects. It’s a mix between a record label and a museum, with underground artists at the helm. I believe that soul is about being true to yourself, and artists should be true to themselves. Anything in its full honesty is soulful, and I seek to create a space for artists to re-invent the way we engage with art.

My vision is for Soul Labels to become an auction house of sorts to help subculture artists break into the fine art world on their own terms. This could be accomplished through funding, sponsorships, and by issuing pieces of work regularly like a book, painting, song, or other commission-based work.

It’s true that “hubristic pride” – when you feel pleased in your own abilities – can be harmful and indicative of an inflated ego. But “authentic pride,” which is the satisfaction and pleasure we take from the positive outcomes of our hard work and dedication, is an important, rewarding emotion that encourages persistence. And for creatives going through a tough patch, feeling a lack of pride can be a useful indicator that you’re taking the wrong approach. In extreme cases, it might mean it’s time for you to change strategies, or even to take a new direction entirely.

For a dramatic example, consider ultra-marathoner Dean Karnazes who once ran 350 miles in one go, and another time ran 50 marathons in 50 days. This man has some serious motivation. But where did it first come from?

The impetus arrived on his 30th birthday when Karnazes was reflecting on his life and his career in sales – a promising path, but not one that gave him any feelings of pride. As University of British Columbia psychologist Jessica Tracy explains in her new book Take Pride, Why The Deadliest Sin Holds The Secret To Human Success, it was specifically this absence of pride that motivated Karnazes to become one of the most successful and inspirational long distance runners in the world. “Karnazes didn’t start running because he knew it would change his life, but because he wanted to feel something,” writes Tracy.

If you recently suffered a disappointment – perhaps a design pitch was rejected, or your latest artwork commission fell through – and are feeling a distinct lack of pride, try not to bury this emotional discomfort. Instead, use it to motivate yourself to make the changes you need to turn things around.

Alternatively, if what you’re doing and achieving doesn’t give you a warm glow of authentic pride, perhaps it’s time to rethink your work priorities and strategies. Indeed, we could all benefit from tuning into these feelings more. “We often can be going along and things seem good, but we’re missing this sense of achievement,” notes Tracy. “This sense of pride in ourselves, and becoming aware of that, is often what prompts us to change our behavior.”

Tracy recently demonstrated some of these motivating effects in a series of studies published with colleagues at the University of British Columbia and the University of Rochester. For example, the researchers measured university students’ feelings of authentic pride after an exam, and they found that those who reported feeling low pride after a poor result (i.e., they reported feeling little sense of fulfillment or accomplishment) also tended to say they planned to change their study strategies, and they subsequently showed improvements to their performance in another exam several weeks later. The same improvements were not shown by poor-performing students who did not experience low pride.

It was a similar story when the researchers surveyed members of a running club after a race. Those who performed poorly, and who also reported feeling low pride afterwards, tended to say that they planned to change up their training regime, and they went on to achieve a better performance in their next race.

These results show how feelings of low pride act as a “barometer of achievement” that motivate us to change. But crucially, it is only if you take the time and effort to reflect on these feelings, or lack of them, that you will get to benefit from their motivational power.

One word of caution – if you’ve had a string of disappointments and you’re feeling low feelings of pride combined with low self-confidence, you risk your absence of pride slipping into shame. Shame, as Tracy explained, “… is feelings of ‘I can’t do anything. I’m not good at this. I’m not going to try to work hard because it’s just going to end up in failure’” – a state which is not at all motivating. Feeling low authentic pride, by contrast, “means you’re missing those feelings of competence and achievement and you’re trying to get those feelings back,” says Tracy.

If you’ve had a string of disappointments and you’re feeling low feelings of pride combined with low self-confidence, you risk your absence of pride slipping into shame

There’s a key distinction that’s important for determining whether you feel low pride or shame. It comes down to whether you interpret a disappointment as due to changeable issues, such as a lack of effort or the wrong strategy, versus it saying something about the kind of person you are. For instance, if your last design didn’t get much positive feedback and you interpret this as saying that you’re a poor designer with no talent, this is clearly demoralizing. On the other hand, what can be a powerful motivating force is when you feel a strong yearning to experience pride, rather than disappointment, and you recognize what you need to do to succeed next time.

So embrace pride. It is not vain or inappropriate to want to feel more proud of yourself for your dedication and commitment.

Thing is, Kuhlken, 31, and Goldman, 32, never quite made it past step two. And judging by their lives at the moment, maybe that’s for the best. Their initial foray into graphic design happened while in college, when the duo obsessed over having just the right gig poster. Soon, a poster for themselves turned into making posters for the Troubadour concert venue in Los Angeles, for acts like the Dave Mathews Band, the Black Keys, and Phish. The steady work (done for free, at first) led to the creation of their studio: DKNG.

Today, DKNG is on the precipice of the design industry’s own version of the hit record. Whether it’s their nontraditional, transparent approach to marketing their business or the steady expansion of their client base and offerings, Kuhlken and Goldman are getting a second chance at stardom. They’re steadily accruing a fan base of fellow designers as they repeatedly peel back the process behind some of their most popular work — and it’s still just the two of them.

But just like those days in the garage, you wouldn’t know it. They are notoriously (and sometimes frustratingly) pragmatic and low-key. There will be no victory laps or launch parties. Just two childhood friends in two separate studios in L.A. and San Francisco doing their best to get better every day.

We spoke to Kuhlken and Goldman in an effort to learn what it takes to build a small design studio, one where you have all the control, but also all of the burdens of running a business.

Nathan Goldman and Dan Kulkhen photographed in San Francisco by Russell Edwards

Dan, you studied fine arts in college. Nathan, you studied film. Does it feel like you backed into the design business?

DK:Painting fine art takes an extraordinary amount of talent and skill and time to get good at it. I see that in graphic design. There’s not going to be a point where I’m a master and I’m perfect at it. Every single week I’m learning something new; it’s like an endless abyss. And Nathan is an excellent art director, which I think he gets from learning how to direct films.

NG:That idea of leading people through narrative I learned from filmmaking. The other thing is collaboration. We rely on different people and teams, much like making a movie.

Why the early obsession with gig posters?

DK:Our love for posters started with Scrojo, who basically did all the posters for [San Diego music venue] Belly Up. My mom sent me an article about him, and up until then, I had no idea that you could make a career out of making posters. He quickly became an idol. In a weird coincidence, Nathan knew someone at the Troubadour who said the artist there was leaving. We looked at each other and thought, “We could actually be poster artists! Like Scrojo!” Nathan was way more into graphic design than I was, and I was more into fine art illustration. But those are the two avenues that get posters done. It turned into a passion before we knew it was.

NG:Part of that initial interest in posters grew out of necessity. Dan and I were playing in a band together and we wanted to promote our shows, to make gig posters for our own band.

How have the two of you worked together for so many years, all day, every day and not wanted to kill each other?

DK:Most creative people are very sensitive. Luckily, we grew up together, are good friends, and know we are coming from a good place when we say things. It’s for the benefit of the project. It takes a lot of tough skin to get there. It’s been a long 10-year career, and there was definitely some turbulence along the way. We’re in different locations, so we go back and forth with emails 20 times a day and call each other twice a day. The hardest thing is to be honest and not hurt the other person’s feelings.

NG:It’s learning how to share opinions and critiques. At this point we now know what the other person’s criticism is going to be and we can almost preemptively make changes. It took years to get to that point.

Part of that initial interest in posters grew out of necessity. Dan and I were playing in a band together and we wanted to promote our shows, to make gig posters for our own band.

How do you fight that lizard brain defensive reaction we have when people criticize us?

DK:Whenever a disagreement comes up, I have to listen and realize that maybe there’s something in this I’m not seeing, or I am wrong, or I might not be hearing all the information. We both know what we’re talking about. No one is right or wrong. It’s more about, How can we get there better?

NG:Any criticism is just an exploration of making the best possible art that we can. One thing that helps: If you just spent days slaving away on a piece of art and you just put your pencil down and someone immediately tears it apart, that can be hard. So if you have the luxury, walk away from it for a day. Give it some space and look at it with fresh eyes. That’s when criticism is much more palatable.

How do you deal with heated disagreements, when one of you is an “11” in how much you care about it? Does someone cave?

DK:We sometimes get so determined in our individual vision that it’s a matter of convincing the other person. No one ever says “I still think you’re crazy, but fine.” It just becomes a longer conversation.

NG:I can’t really think of a time when someone was an “11” and someone was a “0.” It’s more often that someone is 50/50, and we trust the confidence of the other person.

Reading praise for your work, many cite that you don’t have a defined style, that it’s hard to pick out a DKNG work. So if there’s not an aesthetic thread, what are the design principles of DKNG?

DK:Our main goal is to create an aesthetic unique to a client.

Sure, but lot of people that do client work say that. How do you “get” a client in such a limited timeline?

DK:A lot of times, the client will present how they think they appear, which is good and bad sometimes. We pride ourselves on concept development, so when someone asks us to create something exactly, it takes the process out of it. It’s important to know how they’d like to look. We listen to all of their music, go through all their interviews, and see what’s already been made.

NG:We have a shared Dropbox where we put all of the collected material into a client folder and throw together lots of that material onto a mood board. Then we put together a text document with initial concepts, lyrics, and other things. That document gets turned into three separate concepts of what we think the piece could be. Sometimes we present that research to the client while mentioning what else is in the marketplace. It can get pretty in-depth.

DK:A lot of companies that are similar to us would spend a lot of time on this part. But we don’t have the luxury. Most of the emails ask us to turn stuff around in three weeks.

How do you remove your ego as a creative person and make something that a client wants?

DK:There is one client I have in mind that had the concept and wanted us to make the artwork. That takes a lot of pride to swallow, because we’re basically being asked to be production artists. Sometimes, though, that’s worth doing. Not to be crude, but if the paycheck is worth it, we can make that. It just might not be something we put in the portfolio.

NG:If people are paying us to work with them, we feel we owe it to give them our opinion and not just bend over and say “We’ll do what you want!” It’s part of the reason people are hiring us. Sometimes we stand up for ourselves and people go with our concepts. But there are some situations when someone is paying us, and they don’t want to budge, and we both say, “Let’s make them happy.”

No one is right or wrong. It’s more about, How can we get there better?

Dan Kuhlken (left) and Nathan Goldman in San Francisco

You do posters. And packaging. And tutorials. And Skillshare classes. How do you do all these things and still remain focused enough that people know what to come to you for?

DK:It’s about what we present to the public. Our portfolio was gig posters for a long time, even though we were doing other stuff. We only put up our most exciting stuff, because that’s the stuff we want to do again. It’s worked. But gig poster work is starting to decline. If we had all of our eggs in that, we’d be out of business, so we’re exploring new avenues all the time. The world of graphic design and illustration is huge. As an example, we just got into packaging, and we may add that into our portfolio in the next several years.

NG:Whether it’s classes or events, we try to keep the quality at a certain level, to maintain focus within each area. And always refining what we are willing to take on in a curated way.

DK:We’re developing our brand as we go. We can’t predict what we will look like in five years’ time. I don’t want us to be easily defined. But when you see you it, you understand.

What do you prioritize as a business more: growth or control?

NG:It’s a little bit of both. I think measured is a good word. There are things we aspire to when it comes to growing. We won’t hire 12 designers and try to blow this thing out as much as possible. It’s more looking at each business area and seeing what tweaks to make.

C’mon, you guys can’t be that pragmatic and middle of the road on everything.

NG:[laughs] Sorry we can’t have a crazier answer like “We want to own a private jet and go on tour!”

DK:We like to say we’re lean. We don’t want to hire an employee and give them the jobs we used to do. We don’t want to be full-time managers. We want to be illustrators and designers. We’re not out to be this enormous company. It’s about making our lives as fulfilling as possible as individuals.

You often share video tutorials explaining the design process behind an illustration. Why?

DK:Process videos started as an experiment. We knew other people did them and we enjoyed watching them. It turned into something that became a marketing piece. They weren’t making any big splashes until we released the band Explosions in the Sky’s mammoth poster. We got a bunch of hits to our site from that and the poster sold out. So a flag popped up that said this was a way to market ourselves and show our products and portfolio. Now it’s a strategic way of getting our name out there.

NG:Not to be cheesy, but the way that we learned was by talking to our peers and other designers. It’s amazing how generous people are with us, so we enjoy sharing our process. People ask if we’re creating an army of imitators to put us out of business. But we’re happy to pull back the curtain. We’re confident in our abilities.

I don’t buy the reasoning of those who believe creatives should be secretive.

NG:Right. Me neither. There still some secret sauce to what we do. It’s amazing to see people take what they learned and put their own style on it and have great careers.

What does the design world talk too much about?

DK:Rules. When there are certainties about how things are supposed to get done. People see the rules and think My life doesn’t allow me to do that, so I can’t be a professional artist. A lot of people ask us how we got here and I say, “Whatever I say is different than what you need. We have different lives.” When I see a list of rules on how to become a pro, everyone has a different story. Unless those rules are super general, it’s not helpful and it’s deceiving.

I feel it’s because blogs like writing about the “one thing” we need.

NG:The scary thing about any creative field is that it’s not like being a doctor, where you go to school and get licensed. There’s no path to being a designer. Maybe you’ll hit. Maybe you won’t. Having a notion of the ‘one thing’ you need can be helpful, but it can be limiting.

What do we not talk enough about?

NG:The business side. It’s almost taboo to talk about finances. There’s a lot about following your passion and dreams, and the business stuff gets swept aside in favor of focusing on creativity. You can be a smart businessman and artist simultaneously.

At what point in the education process is this aversion to money distilled in the creative community?

DK:If anyone wants your work, it’s a compliment. A lot of artists take this to an extreme and then will do it for free. They’re like, “Wow, someone wants to give me exposure. I’ll finally have my foot in the door!” You wouldn’t do that if you were a plumber or an architect.

We’re happy to pull back the curtain. We’re confident in our abilities.

Didn’t you guys do posters for Troubadour for free in the beginning of your career, though?

DK:Exactly! We’re guilty of it. I’m glad we did because it gave us a portfolio that led to clients. We did it longer than we needed to, though. It’s a matter of letting your sensitivity not be part of your business decisions. Look at it cut and dry: You gave them your work. What did they give you? A lot of artists are blind from their sensitivity. They value being “accomplished” more than making money.

To push back, you can only have that opinion because you’ve reached some degree of success. It’s easy for someone with clients knocking on their door to say “always charge money.” When you’re 22, you don’t have that option.

DK:Absolutely. It’s hard for us to tell students to never do spec work. They could say, “That’s fine, but I’m starving.” There’s a balance. Ideally you build work up as quickly as you can so you can charge as fast as possible.

It sounds like your guiding philosophy is to just decide what you personally want to do and that’s it. There are no rules.

NG:There’s a second layer where we look at three questions: Is this something we’re passionate about, that we want in our portfolio? Is this a client we want to build a relationship with? And then the financial component: I’d love to only take on work we’re excited about, but we have to pay the bills. Those three criteria lead us to an answer. It sounds straightforward, but it doesn’t always go that smoothly. At the end of every year we do internal awards. What are the best projects? How do we do more of those? The worst ones that dragged us through the mud —how do we avoid those? Every year we fine-tune that spider sense of what is good and bad.

DK:It’s interesting to look at the hard numbers. What did client work bring in? What about retail sales? Just having those talks is a great way to decide how we’re going to run our business. Every year we run into a new set of problems, and that’s great. It’s the reason we grow.

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Before her father George passed away in 1990, Mira Nakashima, “only 74,” spent 20 years as his apprentice at their family’s Nakashima woodworking studios in New Hope, Pennsylvania. The training was of the Stotan variety: Her father spoke little to her, expected her to learn by doing, demanded long hours, and was more apt to point out her mistakes than to offer praise. The idea of reaching perfection was borderline mythical, a bull’s-eye that one aimed at but could never quite hit. Now Mira says that, after 47 years, including the last 26 as the Nakashima studio master, she’s finally beginning to hit her stride.

She works six days a week, sometimes seven, a fatigue-inducing standard driven into her by George, who worked almost every day of his career until he had a stroke and eventually died at age 85. Observing Mira’s dedication can make one wonder: What is truly required to master one’s craft? And, bracingly, is it worth the trouble?

While George’s teaching style might be seen as dangerously tough, the approach allowed him to become one of America’s master furniture craftsmen, despite some serious hardships. A graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he lived in Seattle with his wife, Marion, and Mira until 1942, when they were forced to move to an internment camp in the Idaho desert. “In camp, he and a Japanese carpenter were given the job of trying to make our living quarters more livable, and they had to use whatever materials were lying around: leftover construction lumber, packing boxes, crates,” says Mira, a newborn at the time.

After the family left the camp in 1943, they made their way to New Hope, where the architect Antonin Raymond — who sponsored the family to get them out of the camp — owned some land. “Dad was not allowed to do architecture with Mr. Raymond, but he was employed as a chicken farmer and was allowed to make furniture in the milk house,” says Mira. “He didn’t have money, so he went to the lumberyard and scrounged for leftovers.” Using discarded pieces as his canvas, George began to celebrate the imperfections found in wood, like the cracks and knotholes. Rather than smooth them out, he left the imperfections in, and that became his signature style in his tables, chairs, and other pieces of furniture.

George Nakashima at his workshop.

When George found a three-acre property nearby, he negotiated a work-for-land deal with the owner. “We lived in a tent while Dad built our home,” says Mira. Today Mira works on the same wooded acreage, which consists of 14 buildings, from that first home George built to the design and construction studios. Ever since her father passed away, Mira has managed the entire woodworking operation, overseeing the handful of craftsmen and ushering in the next chapters of her family’s business.

Here, Mira opens up about what it was like to learn the craft from her father, the importance of toiling away for years without feeling the need to be applauded for your output, and why she hasn’t handed the family business over to her children.

What is more important for an artist to do, respect the tradition before them or develop their own style? Why?

Keeping in mind that art is not a product of the ego but a result of being open to divine inspiration, one usually builds on what one has learned in the past that works well and resonates from within. In Western culture, following a tradition is not a respected path, but in most Eastern traditions it is the only way to go. I remember a conversation I had with a Japanese colleague after my father died and I wasn’t sure what to do next, and he told me that in Japan, there are three ways of carrying on a tradition: One, the path of the tea ceremony, in which one spends years trying to learn what the master knows, following exactly what he does until it becomes second nature and you are also ready to teach the tradition. Two, the path of the kabuki actor, in which the inheritor of a name may not necessarily be a family member, but has similar talents, and may assume a role completely different from that of his predecessor. Three, the path of ikebana (flower arrangement), in which one is expected to learn everything from the master but is also expected to create some “branch” of the tradition based on the original “trunk” before he/she is also recognized as a master. My friend thought that the third path was probably the one I should follow.

Art is not a product of the ego but a result of being open to divine inspiration.

How have you created your own style in the shadow of your father’s tradition and legacy?

It is perhaps odd, but I feel that my father is still here guiding and inspiring those of us who work here, and whenever there are questions, we stop and ask ourselves, What would George do? Respecting and incorporating the previously tried-and-true methods, designs, proportions, materials and techniques gives us the confidence to stretch a bit beyond the realm of what was previously done, without violating it.

Japanese-style home designed by George Nakashima located in Pocantico Hills, New York. Image courtesy of Nakashima Foundation for Peace

What piqued your initial interest in woodworking?

I didn’t decide I would make woodworking a career — it was decided for me. When I was in high school, one of my English teachers had us write an essay about what we wanted to be when we grew up. I liked music and languages, but my mother said, “You want to be an interior designer,” and she practically wrote my essay for me. It was the only “A” I ever got in English. Then when I got to Harvard I had to decide on a major, and I thought I would go into linguistics. But my dad said, “No, you’re going into architecture.” And I thought, Okay, I guess I can do that. I went into architectural science, which really wasn’t a hard course at Harvard.

What led you to Tokyo afterwards to study for a master’s degree at Waseda University?

My dad had two friends who were teaching architecture in Japan, and he decided that I should study with one of them. I chose Waseda University because it would let me write my exam papers in English. And the school would give me a real degree, where the national university would only take me on as a special student, because I couldn’t read or write in Japanese. I could hardly understand the lectures at Waseda, and I was really glad that my friends helped me translate everything after class.

Was it expected that you would return home and work for the family business after college?

Well, at the beginning, Dad kind of lured me home, because he said he bought this property near his studio and he was going to build me a house. I wasn’t sure I wanted to come home; I liked being by myself and doing what I wanted to do. But he also offered me a part-time job working for the company, which drove my mother crazy, because my parents were very strict about work times. You were supposed to punch in at 7:30 a.m., leave for an hour at lunchtime and then come back and work until 4:30 p.m. My hours were all over the place, since I had three little kids, eventually four. Mostly, I was Mother’s helper at the beginning.

My job description was doing anything that no one else would do. Dad let me work in the shop on the small pieces, which was fun. I learned what to do by doing it and getting corrected.

My father is still here guiding and inspiring those of us who work here, and whenever there are questions, we stop and ask ourselves, What would George do?

What should someone taking an apprenticeship look to get from it?

If you are a creative person, I think there needs to be a certain amount of discipline and rote learning. In Europe and the far East, there is the master and apprentice system, where the apprentice just does what he is told. And he is fired if he doesn’t do that. You need to learn the structure of your craft from your master, and that takes a long time, and a lot of patience.

How did all of the firing make for conversation at the family table?

My mother was pretty conscientious about where she sat us. And, as soon as dinner was over she’d start cleaning the dishes and it was time to leave. There wasn’t much conversation. Dad was a Zen master. You learned by doing and not by talking. This comes from the Japanese heritage, whether I want to admit it or not. When I was in Japan, I got extreme exposure to how the loyalty system works, how the work ethic works, and how the common goal is much more important than the personal goal.

Despite your father being a man of few words, did he have any kind of mannerism that he used to tell you when he was proud of what you had designed?

When when I was very little he would boast about me to other people and it was almost embarrassing. He’d tell them I could speak five languages, when I could say “good night” in five languages. He would boast about me until I disobeyed him, then I was in the doghouse for quite a while. When I got older he didn’t brag about me at all. I don’t ever remember being praised for being successful while I was working for him. It wasn’t something I desired. One thing that he always talked about, sometimes to me, but often to the men in the shop, is that the trouble with the Western world is that it’s based on the ego, and you have to get rid of the ego. The ego is too big. Get over it. That was my lesson.

One of 14 buildings on the Nakashima property, the Concoid Studio was built in a three-dimensional fashion with a square base and an arch rising over the top.

Once your father died, customers quickly canceled orders because they didn’t think there was anyone at Nakashima designing pieces, like you had been doing for 20 years. How did you market yourself to let them know that you, and a dozen other people working there, could adeptly produce what they wanted?

I didn’t have a clue what marketing was when Dad passed. But the Michener Art Museum decided they wanted to do a memorial on my dad and they had this reading room in this new museum they were building and the director decided that it would be nice to create a little Nakashima memorial room. He asked me to design it and furnish it. During this process, I commiserated with the museum PR person that I didn’t know if our company would be able to keep going, and she said she would do something about it. She got me so much publicity about that little room, which was embarrassing, because a whole new museum was being built. Gradually, we started to come back to life.

Did you ever consider shutting the business? Why or why not?

When Dad died I didn’t know if the business would be able to continue or if I wanted to continue it, But I looked at the woodpile that my dad had accumulated over the years, and I realized I couldn’t stop. I had to do something with that pile of wood. It was sitting there asking to be made into something.

How have you approached your children getting in the family business?

I do have four children and seven grandchildren. When my children were growing up, I didn’t want to push them one way or another. Two of them went into medicine and they’re doing extremely well. They have started their families and have moved to the West Coast, and I certainly don’t want them to give up their careers to run a furniture business. My daughter did study architecture, the only one of my children who studied architecture, so she is qualified, but she married one of her classmates at McGill University [in Montreal], and decided she wanted to live in Canada for the rest of her life. She is not coming home anytime soon.

I have one son who is in the area and desperately does want to work here, but he just does not have the background or sensibility of knowing what it is we do and respecting the traditions from the past and having an eye and capability for design — he never studied design or architecture. He never even studied art. He did go to business school, so that is where his perspective is. In my mind, if you think about the money first rather than the art first, the art will fall on its face. We have parted ways for the time being. It is a big disappointment. I was hoping he would be able to catch on and learn, though I haven’t totally given up hope.

Each piece of wood is different from the next one — sometimes it takes an hour to shave a piece, sometimes it takes 15 minutes.

You display the Japanese work ethic of focusing on mastering a single task over a period of years, while living in an American culture that prizes efficiency. To what degree do you feel tension between the two cultures?

That tension was felt most acutely when my son was working for us. He wanted to do everything faster and more, and we’re not set up to do it that way. That isn’t how we have gotten where we’ve gotten. Each piece of wood is different from the next one — sometimes it takes an hour to shave a piece, sometimes it takes 15 minutes. Dad always said there was one perfect piece of wood for every purpose, and we do our best to find that one piece of wood.

Is retirement a consideration?

Yeah, I’ve thought about it, but it never happens. A few years ago I thought I would retire slowly. I would cut down my six-day week to a five-day week, and then the next year I could cut down to four days, then eventually I would be able to retire.

In an era of lightning-fast disruption and innovation, savvy creative agencies have started selling a diversified selection of products, rather than relying on a single revenue stream, typically design consulting, to earn their livelihood. This approach requires establishing multiple legs of a business to ensure that your agency has both active and passive revenue streams coming from a variety of sources. Among those leading this new way of thinking is ustwo, a digital product studio with offices in London, New York, Malmö, and Sydney.

By adding a direct-to-consumer product unit and a venture arm to its operation, ustwo has developed a strong defense against economic downturns that freeze client ad budgets, the fickle moods of brands, and hamster-wheel economics that require staffers to always be moving in order to make money. Ustwo’s sales triangle is full of big-name brands and commercial hits. It counts Google as a design consultancy client via its work on Google Cardboard. Meanwhile, it developed the gaming apps Monument Valley (26.1 million downloads) and PAUSE (150,000 downloads) in-house. The company has also exchanged its design-work hours for equity in the start-ups Wayfindr, an app that helps visually impaired people travel independently, and Dice, a live-music, no-fee booking platform.

Ninety Nine U recently spoke with ustwo co-owner Jules Ehrhardt at the brand’s office near Wall Street. There he discussed why designers must think about their work in terms of commerce and opened up ustwo’s playbook, sharing specifics on how they run their various sales channels.

Jules Ehrhardt photographed in Soho, New York City.

What problem did you encounter with the traditional business model of the design consultancy agency and how did you deal with it?

The consultancy model is a good business that can be profitable, but it is risky being a small agency — one client leaving can kill you — and it is not really scalable. You’re at the whim of clients and of economies. If there is a downturn, the marketing and advertising budgets are the first to go, and that kills agencies. It’s like a hamster wheel. The challenge we are looking to overcome is how to use our skills to evolve the business model, which means making money from passive revenue streams, so we don’t always have to pedal to make money.

One change you’ve made is to expand your offerings within the design consultancy arm, so you now have the capability to do everything from coming up with the initial product designs to having your engineers build the product. Why have the full-spectrum component?

We’ve been known over the years as a design studio but we’ve also had a super hard-core engineering capability over the last seven years. We now call our design consulting “product design.” Otherwise we’re just a design studio producing a lot of paperwork in the abstract. Because until design touches the code, the user, and reality, you’re not going to have the feedback you need to improve and iterate the design.

For us, design and engineering have to work in tandem from day one of the project. Let’s say you’re doing a global hotel booking application. That requires three months of research and three months of design before you hand it to engineers. In those six months, you might have updated operating systems available in the market, and then what happens if a designer hands off a project to the engineers and leaves the company? What happens if the engineer has a question about design and the designer is no longer there? At ustwo, our design and engineering teams work together to deliver the research, the branding, the strategy, and the actual implementation of that solution — the complete solution. Otherwise the client has to go to a branding consultancy for the brand solution, then to a design agency. Then an engineering firm? The efficiency isn’t there.

The good thing about us having moved into the product design business is that brand product lifecycles are six months, a year, or even two years long, so companies don’t cut those budgets as readily — and they’re bigger than marketing and advertising budgets.

What led ustwo into making its own products and selling them directly to consumers?

The reason we started to build our own stuff was because we only had one client and that client wouldn’t let us tell the world that we worked with them, so we had no external voice. Matt [Miller], one of our cofounders, set his mind to us building our own stuff. We were there building apps right at the beginning of the iPhone. One of our earliest apps was called MouthOff — a cartoon game where you hold your phone in front of your face and speak into it, while the app’s mouth animates the sounds you make — and the conversations it started with investment banks were so bizarre and playful. I was at a major investment bank going through our deck, pitching them on something, and we got to our page for MouthOff and one of the bankers was like “Stop!” He got his phone out and I realized that on the 30th floor of this investment bank they’re doing MouthOff to each other.

Was building products initially a revenue or marketing play?

Principally, it was to market ourselves, but through the app store it became possible to make money off of it. However, there are a lot of corpses in the road on the way to Monument Valley. We call it “succailure” — failure on the way to success. We have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on apps that have died, but that is part of the journey. We invested $2 or $3 million in Monument Valley, and it has made us $15 million and was featured on House of Cards, so it fulfilled the marketing and passive revenue stream pillars. And adding $15 million to your bottom line over a couple of years is good for business.

How do you determine the budgets and sales goals of your direct-to-consumer products?

It has evolved. Years ago we started by literally making things we felt like, and that was fine. But the reality today is that to make anything of consequence you’re looking at an internal spend of $200,000 to $300,000. The goals are all over the place, like with our app PAUSE, which we did with a friend of ours who is a tai chi expert. That was not going to be the next Facebook, but it was good for us because it was written up by Time as one of the best apps of the year. I think that lots of agencies can design a product, but they don’t have the engineering to build a product. Of those that can, I don’t think many have, because it’s just hard. In another universe, Monument Valley could have been number one for only a few weeks and disappeared after everyone said they’re not going to pay $4.99 for an app.

At what point did you decide to take equity in companies, in exchange for the product design hours you worked for them?

The reason we looked at venture is that we’ve worked on products for major brands that have generated billions of dollars in revenue per year. And we had been charging our consultancy rate, which is a daily fee. That was a real turning point, because we can create products from design to engineering, from the first meeting to taking it to market as a fully functional product. Not many companies can do that. We realized we had to be trading that commodity differently, so revenue sharing or working with start-ups to take equity in return for our work, as well as helping to launch start-ups. We’re quite focused when it comes to our venture model. Our inclination now is to partner with VC’s to do the initial company partner filtering and then we can do our bit, the product, and then our partners will ultimately run with the venture and we will step back over time.

You’ve written about how ustwo works with, not for, its client partners. That mentality can easily feel clichéd. How can you have an equal relationship with someone who is paying you lots of money to work for them?

One important change is that we have ditched “visual” or “interactive” designer as terminology, and we now call everyone “product designers.” I know it’s just a label, but philosophically we don’t want anyone to absolve themselves of this wider responsibility. If you say “I’m just a visual designer” then you might allow yourself to just think in terms of visual design constraints, But the reality is that a product touches a human being and product designers are responsible for how the product will work and how humans respond to it. The product designer mentality is our effort to make designers more responsible for the result and part of the wider steps of designers getting a seat at the table with the executive group. Designers need to be able to explain to them how their designs will help with user acquisition and retention, things like that. Because a CFO is not going to want to hear about visual hierarchy.

To think like an executive, about money.

Yes. Designers can’t indulge in extreme abstractions anymore. That is the problem that design has; we’ve been indulged. Design is a beautiful thing because it’s art, but when it comes to product and customer experiences, it’s not just art.

What happens when you have a demanding client who offers you a lot of money? Do you still take the job? Why or why not?

Our ambition is always to establish a partner relationship rather than the antiquated client-vendor relationship. We tend to avoid companies who resolutely operate under the latter model, or those who we do not see as being able to make the shift. Healthy relationships are based on respect, honesty and commitment, which is what partnership means to us. That’s how you get through the inevitable hard times, and there will be hard times when you are building anything of consequence. We need to believe in and emotionally commit to the project goals and the combined “one team” we establish with our partner just as much as they do. As for “it’s too much money to not do it,” it kind of boils down to this: Minted or poor, dating an arsehole is always a poor life choice. We all know how it’s going to turn out. The sad fact is that people, at some level, allow themselves to be in abusive relationships. That is such a dangerous path to set down for an agency. I know of many agencies who have engaged in that compromise, and they are feeling the effects, ending up with well-paid but shit work and poor client relationships. That saps any studio’s life force.

We’ve ended multimillion dollar engagements because we did not believe the relationship or work was healthy for us.

Some agencies might argue that they have no choice but to accept a large sum of money, no matter how the clients behave. You’d argue otherwise?

Ultimately you always have a choice. You go into any relationship with all your heart, but still things can not work out. We’ve ended multimillion dollar engagements because we did not believe the relationship or work was healthy for us. We’ve taken a hit as a consequence, but it’s always worked out in the end. I believe that by prioritizing our people, we are fundamentally healthier and more committed to each other as a result.

At ustwo there is a very close connection between those that sell the work and those that deliver the work. In my commercial capacity, I would never sell my people down the river, nor would any of our commercial teams. When we evaluate projects, the department leads use a Web-based scoring system we developed to assess the viability of a project based on six factors: impact of the work, project revenue, growth potential, our capabilities to deliver, impact on our profile, and quality of collaboration. No one person can override the choice.

How have you set your design consultancy rates?

Forecasting the effort required to create something is always tricky, especially when it it a complex problem with design, engineering, and a long timeline. A safe model is to get paid on time and material. We charge by the day, not by the hour, because the hour unit creates quite an unhealthy relationship between a creative and an engineer who think they are delivering a unit of time, when really they are delivering a product.

Design is a beautiful thing because it’s art, but when it comes to product and customer experiences, it’s not just art.

Do things like sales and market-testing factor into your idea generation process?

We don’t market test, but we prototype our consumer products around the company to test stuff out with lots of people. We’re not cynical enough to go, “What’s a big market? Smurfberries? Okay, let’s build a Smurfberries app.” If someone really cares about something, they will put in time on it over the weekends and in the evenings. They’re going to have to dedicate six months to it, almost pathologically — I don’t think if you don’t get pathological about it, it will be successful.

If someone is working on a potential consumer project, can they work on it at the office? Or do you encourage them to tinker with it outside of work? Why?

We encourage our people to develop ideas at ustwo, as well as outside of ustwo. If an ustwobie is working on something that could be brought to the world for us, or for themselves, then that can only be a good thing. Why suppress ambition? As long as people meet their responsibilities to their team, then as adults, they can plan their time accordingly and handle both. Their learnings are our learnings, and if one of those ideas became viable and its own entity, then nothing would make us happier than to see one of our own going out into the world and making a success of it.

We have numerous ustwobies who are running their own apps or small side businesses outside of their project work (see Saucedrop, Trick Shot, BlackApp). Some of ustwo’s most meaningful projects have come from invent time, such as Wayfindr. If people are going to want to do it anyway, it may as well be in the open so we can support each other. Over 300 ustwobies can make a pretty loud industry shout when launching something.

Something we’ve learned over the years is that if people are asking for permission or for studio time to work on an idea, then it’s probably not going to be a success. The urge to make “the thing” should be overwhelming and if it is not, then it is questionable whether there will be the drive to follow it through in the real world. Secondly we’ve moved away from just making “cool shit” (“Cool shit is bullshit,” as our cofounder Mills says). We are now being a lot more mature about evaluating the potential business model behind any internal project.”

What is your rule of thumb for when a creative agency should deem itself ready and able to invest in outside ventures?

You need to be able to afford to play this kind of roulette — and it is roulette, even though the odds are probably better at the roulette table. You need to be at a point where you can lose all of the money that you’ve invested in ventures and still be okay as a company. So a 20-person business is not going to be able to risk its entire cash flow to plop into a start-up during a seed round. There you’ve got a 1 in 100 chance of your investment returning any money, and that might take three to seven years — that will kill the 20-person business. I think your agency has to be pushing $5 million to $10 million in annual revenue. If you can invest $20,000 here or there, you can do some pre-seed round investing [an early stage investment, typically on an idea], but that’s not going to get you exponential returns.

How much cash should companies have on hand before they start investing?

First, a company needs to be able to pay competitive salaries and bonuses. Then they need a cash safety level. It’s great if you’ve got six months’ runway in an agency business, but realistically an agency might have two to three months of runway. We wouldn’t want to invest with under four months of cash runway [the amount a money a company has on hand to survive if it were to stop selling products]. The rules would be $5 million to $10 million (and above) in annual revenue, 20 percent profits, three to four months of safety cash, and then after that is what is left in the pot to play with. What we’ve realized is a challenge is that you can do a seed round investment [an early round investment done in the pre-revenue stage] that you might want to follow on, and then you need more money to do that. So I think you will see more agencies build venture funds. What is the point in investing in seed or series A [the first round of significant funding, typically in the mid six-figure to low seven-figure range] and not being able to follow on? Your stake gets diluted and you lose the benefit.

When you have a blockbuster hit like Monument Valley, what do you do with the unexpected extra cash?

We share profits. This year we will share 30 percent of the profits from the studio business. From our ustwo ventures arm, which has the games company and our portfolio of five start-up investments, should there be a return on the start-ups or a dividend from the games company, we have a percentage allocation to share, 20 percent, distributed across the whole company.

So everyone at ustwo has skin in the game and a hand in the spoils.

That creates connective tissue in the efforts between venture and gaming. As an employee, the payout is not going to replicate you going to a start-up and getting 0.5 percent of the company, but the odds of that are long. So you have a blend of a relatively safe consultancy business plus the potential upside of the venture arm.

Most companies are tight-lipped about their finances, yet you’re freely sharing numbers and figures. Why?

We share everything. You can go to our company’s headquarters in England and read our annual report. We have even shared when our own apps were a catastrophe, when the downloads were in the tens. We do this because we want our employees to learn.